Raining
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: ...I went outside, looking for something, anything, to take away this feeling of worthlessness that I felt coming over me again.


A/N: I have no life. Seriously. And I've only seen Diamond Dogs three times, and I'm only just getting a post-ep for it now. Anyway, CI's not mine, and neither is Logan, but there you have it.

* * *

I shouldn't have been there, but I was. Shouldn't have been sitting around looking for a way to get away from anything, everything, but it was exactly what I was doing. My first case back in Manhattan, and I had come this close to not getting it closed. Not to mention the fact that my partner apparently knew more about me than I thought she did, but that was beside the point.

I wanted to be pissed off at her, but oddly enough, I found that I really couldn't be. Upset, maybe, because I'd been made to think about things that I'd have much rather forgotten. But pissed off, no. I supposed that this was what I got for answering Barek's question that night we'd spent sitting in the car on a so-called stakeout. Rum punch. I bit back the sudden, unsettling desire to laugh. It had been the truth, though, I thought as I sat, sipping every now and then from the soda that sat in front of me. At least I hadn't lied.

But I almost wished that I had. Would've made things easier, I Mused, on me, anyway, if not on anyone else. Then again, it probably would've just made me feel guilty, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. I hated that. I didn't have any reason to feel guilty about anything, and I knew it. But for some reason…My childhood had been anything but normal. I'd never lied about it before, but I couldn't figure out why that was. I wondered if people might've seen me differently if I hadn't been already seen as someone from the so-called wrong side of the tracks. I wondered if things might've turned out a different way.

I doubted it, and there was no use dwelling on it, so I took another sip of my drink and decided to turn my thoughts to the case that my latest partner and I had just managed to close. It was easier than I'd thought it would be. Suddenly I found myself quite strongly reminded of what my so-called soft spot was, and I didn't like it. Didn't like that this kid had been so manipulated by his so-called mother, didn't like that she had turned on him when he'd given her up, to save her from herself.

That was the way it was, though, and the way it always had been. There was no changing that. Kids in those situations…they could do anything their abuser asked, and be loved for a little while, but in the end, it would always go back to 'normal'. I knew this, but Johnny, apparently, had not, and I knew as I continued to think on it that any guilt I was feeling now wasn't over wishing that I had lied to my partner; it was over not warning that kid what would happen.

Some lessons were harder than others to learn. I had learned that one the hard way long ago, but still found it being reaffirmed every now and then, especially in cases like this. It bothered the hell out of me. It would have been easier if things like this could be learned once, remembered, and never forgotten so it wouldn't have to be learned again. But it didn't work that way, and I knew it, and it frustrated me, because I wanted it to, but things had never really ever worked out the way I wanted them to. And I had learned a while ago that for everything I did, it was useless for me to expect anything in return, because it would never come.

Ten years on Staten Island had brought me into the Major Case Squad, and it scared the hell out of me. It was a feeling that I could have done without; I hated feeling afraid, helpless…Ironically enough, I could hear my mother's voice in my head now, and I might've been able to handle it if I'd been drunk, but I wasn't, and I refused to be, because I knew better than most, what it could do to me. So I got up, before I had the chance to say anything, left money on the table, and started out, wanting something, anything to make it all go away, to take away the feeling of worthlessness that I felt welling up inside of me, again.

So I pushed open the door to the place I was in, ignoring the thoughts of the case that were still bothering me, stood under the awning and stared out into the only borough I had ever really, truly loved, and started to laugh, sounding like anyone but myself, and for one reason.

It was raining again.


End file.
